Future undergraduate students

A student design team made up of mostly mechanical engineering students achieved a major feat in Canadian aerospace with the launch of Borealis—Canada’s first-ever Canadian liquid bi-propellant rocket just outside of Timmins, Ontario at the third annual Launch Canada event.

A group of undergraduate students studying mechanical and mechatronics engineering with the help of students in Systems Design Engineering and Arts recently participated in the Canadian Reduced Gravity Experiment Design Challenge (CAN-RGX). They presented their research at the Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Longueuil, Quebec, and won the Overall Excellence Award.

On June 26th, it was announced that four groups of students and two teams were winners of the Society for Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Digital Manufacturing Challenge. Dr. Mihaela Vlasea, a professor of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering, supervised the students in collaboration with PhD student Daniel Juhasz, who specifically advised the undergraduate team.

If you could live on the moon, would you? A group of Waterloo researchers in the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering has set out to help make that a reality by processing raw materials on the moon to power the area as a hub for manufacturing, construction, and human life.

Professor Michael Worswick received the Market Development Industry Leadership Award from the American Iron and Steel Institute at their Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., for making significant contributions to the competitive use of advanced and ultra-high-strength steel in the automotive market. 

Alumni startups represented the Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering well in the most recent round of companies that received seed funding from being part of Y Combinator (YC), one of the most prestigious startup accelerators in the world. Every year, YC hosts a program that is split into two cohorts in the winter and spring. The successful candidates receive $500,000 in seed funding along with other resources to help startups on their journey. The program is highly competitive, with only 260 companies selected out of 27,000 in the latest cohort. 

Nfinite, a nanotechnology startup led by MME alums Chee Hau Teoh (MASc '20), Jhi Yong Loke (MASc '21), and MME professor Dr. Kevin Musselman, have developed an ultra-thin, flexible, clear, and sustainable alternative for food packaging that can be recycled. Current food packaging is not very recyclable. Nfinite Nanotech is using its funding round to commercialize a new coating for cardboard and paper to help provide a sustainable alternative to current food packaging that can’t be recycled or composted.